What do you need to copy a Blu-Ray ?

I have DVDFab with Blu-Ray copy option, but my DVD drive isn't reading the Blu-Ray. Do you have to have a special type of drive to copy a Blu-Ray as a Blu-Ray copy? If so, what kind of drive? Also, what type of blank disc do you have to have to do this? I.e., what type of disc is required to write the Blu-Ray file to? Will a standard DVD+R work? What are Blu-Ray files called? If I use the 'Blu-Ray to DVD option' in DVDFab, will the resulting copied product be Blu-Ray quality, or just DVD quality??

Personally, I'd go with Blu-ray Re-builder. It's far better at retaining picture quality than DVD Fab, if you decide to shrink the Blu-ray a little bit. You have to install a coule of additional programs in order to run Blu-ray Re-builder. But, it's a far better program than DVD Fab for quality, in my opinion and it's a free program. The download link is right under the Oct 28th, 2012 heading.

Awesome! I will check it out! Thank you SO much! Does anyone know?: my laptop is 3 years old, and the specs never said anything about playing Blu-Rays. It does, of course, have a DVD burner. Can I use it to play (AND copy) Blu-Ray discs with the proper software as mentioned/recommended? Also, is a "Blu-Ray to DVD" converted disc the same high quality as a Blu-Ray, or does it come out just like a standard DVD? That is an option available in DVDFab, but I'm having trouble understanding why anyone would want to convert a Blu-Ray to a DVD if the Blu-Ray quality reverts to standard DVD quality. Also, dumb question, but I have to ask: to copy a Blu-Ray, I will, of course, need BD-R Media, right? What's the difference between BD-R 25GB and BD-R 50GB (besides the obvious, and the price). Can most Blu-Rays be burned onto a BD-R 25GB? Is there any other cheaper media than those two? (I saw a retailer advertising BD-Rs cheaper, but it didn't say neither 25GB nor 50GB after the "BD-R" word).

DVDFab has become nutty expensive. There's alternatives that cost a lot less and things like picture quality exceeds anything DVDFab can produce. You may need to use more than one application but it's worth it.

Awesome! I will check it out! Thank you SO much! Does anyone know?: my laptop is 3 years old, and the specs never said anything about playing Blu-Rays. It does, of course, have a DVD burner. Can I use it to play (AND copy) Blu-Ray discs with the proper software as mentioned/recommended? Also, is a "Blu-Ray to DVD" converted disc the same high quality as a Blu-Ray, or does it come out just like a standard DVD? That is an option available in DVDFab, but I'm having trouble understanding why anyone would want to convert a Blu-Ray to a DVD if the Blu-Ray quality reverts to standard DVD quality. Also, dumb question, but I have to ask: to copy a Blu-Ray, I will, of course, need BD-R Media, right? What's the difference between BD-R 25GB and BD-R 50GB (besides the obvious, and the price). Can most Blu-Rays be burned onto a BD-R 25GB? Is there any other cheaper media than those two? (I saw a retailer advertising BD-Rs cheaper, but it didn't say neither 25GB nor 50GB after the "BD-R" word).

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You'll need at least a Blu-ray drive to play Blu-rays and a Blu-ray drive/writer in order to burn Blu-ray discs on your computer.

If you convert a Blu-ray to a DVD, it might look a little better than a DVD, simply because the original Blu-ray had a better quality copy on it's disc, but you're still compressing the hell out of the Blu-ray disc, so it's not going to look anywhere near the quality as if you had burned it to a Blu-ray disc. You're shrinking a 25GB or 50GB Blu-ray down to fit on a 4GB-8GB DVD. It will probably look pretty good on a smaller display, but if you want to watch it on any moderately large display, it's not gonna look much better than a DVD.

The obvious differences in BDR25/50 is the capacity. Other than that, brand is always a consideration. Don't buy the cheapest media out there. I've been using Verbatim and it's always reliable as well as decently priced. There's some super-cheap, generic Blu-ray media out there though. I'd avoid those. Order through amazon.com and check reviews first.

As far as ripping Blu-rays to burn, then to fit onto BDR25. There's quite a mixed bag out there of movies being put on either size disc. Usually, larger movies with lots of special features are, obviously, going to go on a BDR50 because there's so much content. However, using a ripper such as Blu-ray Re-builder, there's quite a few quality tweaking options available. You can choose to compress your larger Blu-rays to a BDR25 using slower ripping options which keep most of the quality intact. I've ripped several very large Blu-ray discs from a BD50 and put them on a BDR25 and you'd be hard pressed to notice any quality difference. Also, Blu-ray Re-builder allows you to extract just the movie from a huge disc and cut out all the special features, extra audio and other miscellaneous junk, and in a lot of cases, the movie, by itself, comes in well under 25GB once you eliminate all the other crap on there. In which case, you then have a perfect copy of your high-def movie, with no quality loss.

UGH, okaaaaay.....HOW the heck do you use AnyDVD???!!! So far, it seems retarded to me. I open it, I select the ....whatever, and then press 'okay'. And.... I got nothin' !! ( How do you ACTUALLY COPY with this strangely interactive program???????? Ugh! Why can't it just operate NORMALLY???

AnyDVD runs in the background to remove the disc's encryption. First, make sure you're using AnyDVD HD, as the standard AnyDVD does not have Blu-ray support.

Once you insert your disc, you should get a little bubble tab appearing in your program tray that says AnyDVD is scanning the disc. If you don't see that, open the AnyDVD window to make sure you have everything setup correctly.

First, go down to the Blu-ray tab and make sure "Enable Blu-ray support" is checked. Remove Blu-ray region code should be set to automatic. Then go down to the drive selection tab and make sure the Blu-ray drive in your computer is checked. Then go down to the program settings tab and make sure "Enable AnyDVD" is checked. That should be the bare minimum you need to get things rolling.

As far as ripping the actual Blu-ray disc to your computer, you'll want to use AnyDVD Ripper for that, which should be in the Slysoft folder in your start programs. However, all AnyDVD Ripper can do is rip a straight 1:1 copy of your disc. It can't compress or shrink your movies down and it can't remove certain audio streams or extract just the movie, if you want to just put the movie on a Blu-ray disc by itself. All AnyDVD Ripper will do is straight rip the entire disc. You'll need a program like Blu-ray Re-builder or DVDFab to actually edit out menus, audio or to shrink a 50GB disc down to a 25GB disc, etc...

I found that using DvdFab 9.0.1.6 is all you really need. Insert Blu-Ray into appropriate drive. Start the DvdFab program and click on Blu Ray copy in the copy section of the home screen, then wait for DvdFab to open the movie. Once the movie is open you should be on the screen that gives you the choice to copy the full disc or the main movie, I use just the main movie(program may automatically be on this tab already). Now this part is important, underneath the window on this page that shows you the source(which again is auto detected by the program)and the movie chapters(only the first one in this list should be marked) you should notice a drop down that is labeled: Output, this you want to change to BD25 1080p/i, this will compress the movie to fit on a 25gb Blu-ray blank media. Dont worry about the quality % going down. I did Dark Knight Returns and Madagascar 3 so far then compared them to the originals, believe me there is no difference whatsoever. Then underneath the output selection is the option where to "save to" I save it to the same drive I am using to copy the movie, this drive MUST be capable of both reading and writing Blu-Ray which should already make sense to you. Then just click on the next button, then the start button and let the program go to work for you .At this point the program should be analyzing the movie and then it will start the copy process automatically When the copying process is done you will then need take the original ouot of the drive and insert the blank blu-ray into this same drive. It may take an hour or 2 depending on which movie you are trying to back up but the simplicity of the program is well worth the wait. I would suggest closing any other apps you may have running as these will slow the entire process down. Sorry if it seems like I am running on, I am just trying to bring some simplicity to all of this Blu-Ray stuff.